THE THEATRE.
" THE SJ.EITING PRINCESS " AT THE ALHAMBRA- M. DIAGHILEFF'S BALLET.
Is one of his books Mr. Chesterton remarks that it was because they were so secure in their belief in the truth and majesty of their religion that there seemed nothing undignified or unsuitable to the builder of a mediaeval cathedral in carving on the pillars of the aisle the heads of fat old ladies with their tongues out or fat men drinking, or in carvng the monk's choir seats into groups of the fox in cowl and cassock preaching to a flock of geese. They could, in the strength of their conviction, perfectly well afford to take liberties and to be gay and playful.
So it is with the Russian ballet. They are so sure, so secure in their knowledge of an immense tradition and great personal virtuosity that they no longer feel they need perpetually assure themselves and their audience that they are serious artists. They are so serious that they have completely ceased to be pompous. I apologize if I seem to labour an obvious point, but I know that a good many people have not got the enjoyment they should out of the performance at the Alhambra because they; as it seems to me, did not quite see what the artists were all trying to do. The piece has been accused of triviality and of puerility. A critic whose opinion f value told me, with a little note as of baffled respect, that he felt it was too like a Drury Lane pantomime. If ho had said that the Drury Lane pantomime occa- sionally did succeed—as well it might, belonging to the same tradition—in being a little like M. Diaghileff's ballet in The Sleeping Princess I should have agreed with him. The fact is that we have given the pantomime a bad name, and have hanged not only it but also, apparently, its legitimate, non- mongrel brothers and sisters.
M. Leon Bakst's designs for the costumes are even leas in a serious vein than are the choreography and scenery. Those who have some knowledge of the history of costume will perceive it to be full of learned jokes. For instance, among the Princess's suitors there are a Spanish, an Indian, an Italian and an English prince. The Spanish and Italian princes are both dressed in a fantastic style, but in a manner which we should associate with the reign of Charles the Second ; whereas the English prince is in a dress based on a Jacobean tradition. This, of course, might historically be perfectly correct, the fashions in dress as in architecture being at least half a century behind in England. Then, again, King Florestan, admirably mimed by Mr. Leonard Treer, is in a dress intended as a caricature of the bad tradition of Charles the Second dress—what Mr. Claude Lovat Fraser used to call " the lace drawers " tradition—and in a noble sort of way the King is made considerable fun of. Then, again, there is the case of the Princess Aurora herself. We expect to see her in such a fantastic and imaginative dress as the fairies wore for the most part, but no, we arc given instead an amusing sketch of an Early Victorian prima ballerina, a dress most unsuitable for the ingenue part., but very lovely in itself and admirably adapted to show off Mlle. Olga Spessiva's charm and virtuosity as a dancer. She is exactly like one of the theatrical spangled pictures which have become fashionable of late; her exquisitely neat, black head is bound with a silver wreath and she wears a ballet dress of that peculiar Early Victorian shade which seems to have no precise name now, but which reminds us of a sublime pickled cabbage. Then, again, another, perhaps the funniest of the jokes, is the dress of King Florestan in the grand wedding scene at the end of the ballet. He wears an extraordinary pink-plumed helmet and the incorrect armour in which strutted those shadowy beings, the inhabitants of Horace Walpole's " Castle of Otranto." Of course, if the looker-on saw these dresses and imagined that M. Leon Bakst was simply all through making the mat beautiful creations he could think of, then no doubt he would be somewhat puzzled.
To my mind almost the most beautiful dress in the whole ballet is the very simple one worn by the Indian prince in the :mad act. The dresses for Bluebcard, Ariana, Sister Anne, hs Shah and His Brother, and the two Porcelain Princesses of the last act were lovely in the extreme.
But I am far from doing M. Leon Bakst the disservice of being 110 far a partizan as to say that ho never makes a mistake.
Surely it was an ill-advised " niceness and satiety " that made him use a particularly snuffy sage green velvet in the Court Ladies' dresses in the first act and ally it to a rather muddy tomato colour ? The same sage green reappeared in the hunting scene, to my mind with odious effect. The dresses of the ladies of the ballet—excepting Mme. Tchernicheva's-- in this scene seemed to me altogether very unsuccessful, showing a messy over-elaboration. Some of the studies in late seven- teenth-century men's clothes—Italian and French rather than English style—are wonderful. In the wedding scene some of the dignitaries of the court—" lords, ladies, negroes, lackeys, etc. "—are dressed with, amazing success. A group of men in black full-bottom wigs particularly comes back to me, besides some lawyers or church dignitaries in white wigs and long, black gowns. But it is, perhaps, not well to write of a ballet without any mention of the dancing. Many of the set dances in the old-fashioned pre-Fokin tradition seem to mo to equal anything the Russians have ever shown us. Mes- dames Lubov Tchernicheva and Lydia Lopokova are perfect in their several ways; indeed, except in the matter of strict technique, for Mine. Lopokova " perfect" is the only adjective possible. Mine. Lopokova has reached the absolute perfection that we associate with the contours of a child or the movements in play of a young cat. As for Mlle. Olga Spessiva, she is a newcomer of astonishing talent, her dancing is beautiful and rhythmical and, so far as one can judge from her miming in this light piece, she is very well capable of expressing emotion. M. Stanislas Idzikowski executed an astonishing dance (wildly encored) as the Blue Bird ; he seems to me a male dancer second only to Nijinsky and his performance the chef d'ceurre of the piece. Mme. Nijinska was wonderfully elfish as The Fairy of the Humming Birds in the first scone and later as a Columbine. It is a pity that her personality was not more considered in her dress. There are two or three other dancers whose work was plainly outstanding, but this was as much as I was able to take in at a single visit to this most elaborate of ballets.
Finally, a word must be said for the remarkable architectural effects of the last scene. The set represents complex, many- pillared Baroque perspectives predominantly gold in colour.
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